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Environ Monit Assess (2009) 159:125141 DOI 10.1007/s10661-008-0617-7
Use of ethylene diurea (EDU) in assessing the impact of ozone on growth and productivity of ve cultivars of Indian wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)
Shalini Singh S. B. Agrawal
Received: 26 April 2008 / Accepted: 10 October 2008 / Published online: 8 November 2008 Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract Increase in concentrations of tropospheric ozone (O3) is one of the main factors affecting world agriculture production. Tropical countries including India are at greater risk due to their meteorological conditions (high solar radiation and temperature) being conducive to the formation of O3. The most effective anti-ozonant chemical is N-[2-(2-oxo-1-imidazolidinyl) ethyl]-N-phenylurea or ethylene diurea (EDU). Due to its specic characteristics, EDU has been used in the eld as a phytomonitoring agent to assess crop losses due to O3. Field experiments were conducted on ve local cultivars of wheat (Triticum aestivum L. cv HUW234, HUW468, HUW510, PBW343, and Sonalika) grown under natural eld conditions in a suburban area of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India during December 2006 to March 2007 to determine the impact of O3 on their growth and yield characteristics. Mean monthly O3 concentrations varied between 35.3 ppb and54.2 ppb at the experimental site. EDU treatment positively affected various growth and yield parameters with difference between cultivars.
S. Singh S. B. Agrawal (B)
Lab of Air Pollution and Global Climatic Change, Ecology Research Circle, Department of Botany, Banaras Hindu University,Varanasi 221005, Indiae-mail: [email protected]
EDU-treated plants showed increase in shoot and root length, leaf area, absolute growth rate, relative growth rate, and net primary productivity, indicating O3 induced suppression in growth. EDU treatment was highly signicant in different cultivars for total biomass and test weight but not for harvest index. Yield per plant was higher by25.6%, 24%, 20.4%, 8.6%, and 1.9% in EDU-treated cultivars HUW468, Sonalika, HUW510, HUW234, and PBW343, respectively, than non-EDU-treated ones. These results clearly indicate the sensitivity of all the wheat cultivars to ambient levels of O3 with cv HUW468 appearing to be most sensitive. The present study also supports the view that EDU has great potential in alleviating the unfavorable effects of O3 and can be effectively used as a monitoring tool to assess growth and yield losses in areas experiencing elevated concentrations of...